


White Blank Page

by celli-inkblots (thebeespatella)



Series: Unfinished Tales, or, How I Fangirled Over Carpe Brewski [2]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-01
Updated: 2011-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-23 07:55:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebeespatella/pseuds/celli-inkblots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A companion piece to <a> After the Storm </a>. At an indeterminate point in the Carpe Brewski verse, Charles and Erik are caught in a thunderstorm en route to Xavier mansion.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Carpe Brewski](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/4330) by gyzym. 



> A/N: This one is dedicated to fishdicks, because she had to go five days without Internet. Also, we don’t know what Erik’s sexuality really is at this point, so I went with my own interpretation. These are my views, and I do not pretend that they are substantiated by anything except for my own opinion. Also, I do not own Mumford&Sons, although I have borrowed a title.

The rain is satisfying, in a way – drenching fully and wholly his t-shirt, and then seeping in through the cracks of his shoes, then darkening his jeans until the clothes cling to him uncomfortably. He’s sure he looks a mess as he follows Charles into the door of the place – Betty’s Bed and Breakfast, warm and too cozy, and with an obscene receptionist, cleavage hanging low and heavy in her suit jacket. It catches his eye for a moment – an anomaly, a gut twist.

“Hi,” Charles says, and there’s a light flush in his cheeks and he leans easily on the counter, water glistening on his wrists and smile. It’s a soft moment, but it breaks when he says “Two – ”

There is no way in hell Erik is letting him ask for _two_ rooms, when they’re only staying overnight – when, by the look of the varnish of the counter and the fucking creepy dolls in the cabinet down the hall, this place costs at least fifty a night, and no, Charles, we don’t _all_ have the GDP of a small country to spend every day, and no, Charles, we’re not all ready to let go of what pride we have left.

“One,” Erik says loudly. “One room.”

“Erik…” He sees Charles narrow his eyes briefly, take in Erik’s face like he has some strange mind-reading telepathy – as though Erik’s thoughts are written in his perfectly still limbs and drenched t-shirt. “One.”

“One - ?” the receptionist begins, and the idea is too much to bear.

“Two!” Erik shouts without thinking, starting to hear Charles’ voice raised alongside his. He lets his eyes flick over Charles’ sodden form. Did Charles really – was the idea of sleeping next to Erik really so –

“Not one _queen-sized_ – ”

Ha-fucking-ha, Erik wants to snap, but Charles says quickly, “Two, please” and pulls out his fucking credit card and Erik has to try twist his mouth into something normal. He knows not to say anything in front of the receptionist. Not because the words aren’t bursting , but because there’s something about the way Charles’ spine is sitting under his skin that says _Not here, not now_.

It must be understood that Erik doesn’t do what Charles wants all the time. Or most of the time, even. There was just something about the way the vertebrae stood stock-still under a tangle of wet hair that lead him to keep his hands stuffed in his pockets and his mouth shut. The only other person who could ever convey so much with just a twitch of her mouth was –

“It’s just easier to pay by card, okay?” Charles mutters to him on the stairs.

“Isn’t it always,” Erik can’t help but bite back, feeling ugly and unclean despite the water all over his body.

“You can pay me back,” Charles says, although they both know very well that Charles is going to shred the receipt and throw it down the toilet.

Sometimes his mouth moves and he doesn’t know why or even how, and as they walk up the stairs he says, “Dude. The receptionist kind of looked like a porn star. Like, hardcore.” Because the only kind of beauty she embodied was a tawdry one – no subtlety in the way her lips smacked or breasts pushed. Only one gesture was full of grace, and that was when she had been mocking them.

“No,” Charles answers, sighing. He’s probably tired of Erik’s immaturity. “No, her nails were far too long for any sort of activity to be remotely comfortable.”

“That doesn’t make her, like, not a porn star,” Erik says, more to fill the air with words than the sound of Charles battling the lock. His fingers are twisted around the metal, appealing to Erik’s sensibilities in a way he’d rather not reveal here. There was just something – “Here, just turn – in fact, it increases the probability of her porn career. Just fucking  _turn_  it, Jesus – ”

“Why are you so curious?” Charles asks, tone almost brash, and Erik wants it to be from jealousy, perhaps. “Is her sex life that fascinating to you?” The door opens but Erik doesn’t even see it.

Okay, so maybe Erik is straight, or maybe he’s gay, or maybe Charles is just his soul-mate, but he can’t really be bothered, and once Erik Lehnsherr sets his sights on something, those sights are _set_ , and there’s nobody’s sex life he’s truly deeply interested in except for that of the man in front of him, although her suit _had_ been interesting, nothing compares –  “What? No!” he sputters.

Convincing, Lehnsherr.

“No, dude.  No. She doesn’t even look like – ” The words are out before he realizes he isn’t talking to himself. She doesn’t look a whit like Charles, but that’s not the comparison he was going to make, _was it_?

There’s a beat where words are like fog that he is trying to cage with his fingers.

“Well, she certainly isn’t _my_ type,” Charles drawls, and Erik forgets about low-cut suits entirely when Charles’ voice _rolls_ over his tongue in such a way, lips bright in a sly smile.

He just wants…Charles. Who pulls off his sweater, hair disheveled, a stripe of skin exposing the shallow dip of his hipbones and a sliver of elastic band of his underpants, and maybe ripping those off would be wonderful right now, but actually, “I’m going to shower,” Erik says, and prays that Charles can’t see his hands shaking as he pulls a towel and clothes out of the bag. “And dude,” he says, more for himself than anyone else, “she looks like your sister. That’s just fucking weird.” He rushes into the bathroom, closes the door behind him, and presses his forehead to the cool tile of the wall, dropping his things in a heap on the floor.

It’s not so much Charles’ skin or body that gets him like this, although it is certainly enough, but it’s the idea of obliviousness – that Charles has _no idea_ that Erik wants to tear off his clothes and – and – God, Erik doesn’t even really, really know what to _do_ with boys, just – theory, but he just knows he needs to be close and it needs to be hot and wet and close and desperate and close.

The chill of the rain is seeping into his skin and into the soles of his feet and his jeans are tight.

It would be easier, he thinks as he gets into the shower, if he weren’t so fucking confused all the time. Yes, Charles was – he brushes a hand along his cock as he steps under the tepid shower spray and nearly groans – but then he had moments with people like the receptionist. With women. Was he – was he supposed to like both? Or allowed? Did he even like any guys, aside from Charles? Admittedly there was something about the way Logan drank beer that made him think of sharp, hot teeth (although ugh, pledges) and Steve, he grudgingly acknowledged, had something in his smiles and shoulders that Erik couldn’t quite understand, but fuck him for dumping Charles anyway, the fucking dumbass, but the receptionist, and Angel, for a brief time, and that one redheaded barista at the coffee place on campus, but the way Charles drinks his tea and reads books during parties and pushes his hair out of his eyes and bites his pens –

Jesus. This was complicated.

This is why he studies math, engineering – it’s untangled, it’s concrete. This is why he deals with metal and numbers and other cold things.

The water is hot now, flirting with scalding, rubbing away the tense cold in his back and shoulders. He closes his eyes, grasps his cock, and thinks of Charles, so close, across the door, perhaps, and thinks of him perhaps taking off that sweater, and then unbuttoning his shirt, nipples peaked with cold. And the snap of his belt as he takes it off, looking Erik sultrily in the eye as the zip goes down and everything comes off and before Erik can even cross the room he’s stroking himself and sucking on his fingers and moaning, and saying “Fuck me Erik, oh God please, I need you inside me, I need you to fuck me”, and then he’s sliding slicked fingers into his own ass and keening with pleasure, head thrown back, mouth open – Erik pulls on his cock once, twice more, and then he comes, shuddering, leaving imprints of his teeth on his forearm.

Fuck paying for the room. If there’s one thing he can’t afford to do, it’s to allow Charles to know about this. Jerking off to fantasies of your best friend is creepier than it might seem.

 

\--

 

The Charles he sees when he comes out of the shower is the complete opposite of fantasy-Charles: he’s real-Charles, slumped over his laptop in a corner, asleep. Erik can’t help the smile that tugs at his lips. Despite all of his bath-time wanking fantasies, really, this is much better: the flutter of Charles’ eyelids in REM, the slack of his mouth, the carved bonelessness of his hands.

“Fucking Sleeping Beauty.”

Erik closes the laptop with a soft snap, placing it carefully on the desk. Charles always treats his laptop like shit and a small part of him resents that. Charles is still in his wet things, but Erik’s not going to _change_ him, what a fucking ridiculous idea – so he pulls a blanket from the farther bed and drapes it clumsily over Charles’ form.

He’s not going to watch Charles sleep, that’s just stalkerish, so he pulls out one of his physics texts and settles down on the bed. It’s not exactly waiting. He’s not waiting for Charles to wake. It’s just empty time.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take Charles long. He stirs softly just as Erik finishes a chapter, and he’s disoriented and in this low light it’s calm and soft. He sits up, looking at Erik. “Hey,” Erik says, voice strangely quiet with disuse. “You were sleeping so I moved your laptop.”

“Thanks,” Charles says, but he’s still clearly half asleep, still staring at Erik. He’s almost uncomfortable, hot points prickling all over his skin.

Suddenly Charles casts off his blanket, saying “Um. I guess I’ll go shower now.” He hurries to the bathroom. Although Erik had said the same thing earlier, he highly doubted they were showering for the same reasons. Like most people, Charles probably wanted to get warm and clean, unlike Erik, who wanted to overthink his life and splatter come all over the wall. Had he cleaned it? He’d better have cleaned it. That was just embarrassing if he didn’t –

There’s a human noise from the bathroom – “Charles?” he inquires, but Charles can’t hear him. Maybe he just kicked the side of the toilet by accident.

Some time after, Charles enters the room again, pink with the warmth of the shower and dressed in a large Richters shirt that Erik suspects is his, and sweatpants. It’s strange – he rarely sees Charles outside of his standard button-down uniform despite living with him. It’s in that moment that Erik gains an appreciation for the fact that he hardly ever sees Charles go to bed. Not properly. Not like this. Not with his hair damp and curling and his lips flushed and his skin clean and with the idea that he had just been naked so present.

They have the customary fumble in front of the bathroom mirror and their toothbrushes, both too tired to do anything more than stumble – “Wha?”,“Sorry, my moufs furr of toofpaste” – and then they go to bed.

It’s still raining when Charles’ breath equalizes and Erik lies counting spots on the ceiling. His eyes are waking even as his body wants rest. There’s something he’s realized, something important – there is still so much he doesn’t know about Charles. He knows what Charles looks like drinking, drunk, vomiting, even – he knows what Charles looks like eating toast – he knows what Charles looks like upset – but now he realized that there are things, ways he needs to see Charles.

College is supposed to be when you figure out who you are – despite the years he’d already spent there, he is rewriting it with every time Charles laughs. It is like the beginning of the year – when all your notebooks were empty.

He closes his eyes against the speckled ceiling. His notes are going to be full of scribbles and crossed-out words. But regardless he is going to calculate the geometry of Charles’ mind and body and words against his own, re-evaluate the area so the edges fit.

In the morning curtains will be cast open and searing light will be thrown onto both of them, reminding Erik that he thinks the same thing at least once every week and he remains a coward. But for now as he settles under the sheets, rain slowly dissipating, Erik dreams blissfully of empty lines waiting to be filled. 


End file.
